Annals of Government Medicine

For a surprisingly long time, the British were proud of their system of socialized medicine, apparently because it was considered egalitarian. Now, however, a series of scandals in the National Health Service has focused attention on how low-quality government medicine is. The National Health Service has been rocked by one report after another of appallingly bad care, with many Britons demanding that NHS officials be criminally prosecuted.

Personally, I don’t think that’s appropriate: if you ask for socialized medicine, lousy care is what you get. Still, “lousy” doesn’t do justice to the scandal that has engulfed the NHS. Here are two examples from the last 24 hours, as reported by the Telegraph: